Scientists today are increasingly needed in advocacy and policy efforts, as well as conducting research, securing funding, and teaching classes, and we need to ensure that we foster all of this in the next generation of scientists. How can you ensure that you develop a working mentor-mentee relationship in the sciences, to further academic, advocacy and policy goals? Following on from our mentoring tweetchat and meeting at College Park (stay tuned for our write-up of the event), in collaboration with The Science Network at the Union of Concerned Scientists we invite you to a webinar featuring mentor/mentee pair Sandra Schmid and Ashley Lakoduk from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center who will offer strategies and resources that are currently available to mentors. Mentoring: Catalyzing the Next Generation of Scientists Date: Thursday, October 12 Time: 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. PDT Register for the Webinar Today...

This is a guest post by Future of Research board member, Adriana Bankston. It is the second of two posts (the first post can be found here). Our paper on the effect of the FLSA on postdoc salaries has now been updated here, with analysis of how the injunction and collapse of the updates to the FLSA affected postdocs. Comments to the Department of Labor on a new set of updates were submitted by both the National and UAW5810 branch of the Union of Auto Workers, specifically addressing postdocs. As stated in the previous post, Future of Research has been tracking the national compliance of institutions with the FLSA ruling both before and after the injunction. Unfortunately, some institutions, including MSU, chose to cancel salary raises for their postdocs, causing a great deal of chaos and confusion. To find out how postdocs in this situation felt, in this second blog post, we spoke with postdocs at MSU whose salaries were cancelled following the injunction. The effects of cancelling salary raises Michigan State University (MSU) was one of the institutions where postdoctoral salary raises were cancelled. A common thread among MSU postdocs we interviewed, who wished to remain anonymous, was feeling underappreciated. One MSU postdoc states having had “a constant feeling of being under-appreciated, over-worked, professionally frustrated, and constantly pulling the thrown-in-towel out of the ‘screw-academia’ pile” for the past two years. Postdocs at MSU stated that the initial FLSA ruling gave them a bit of hope. It gave one postdoc the impression that “these past months waiting for a decision to be made were worth it” and made...

Two studies, currently underway at the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, are soliciting public input as part of their process, and they need to hear from you. ONE of the studies has only ONE WEEK LEFT for you to submit input. The Committee on Revitalizing Graduate STEM Education for the 21st Century invites public input here on its Discussion Document and Call for Community Input through September 22, 2017. See our action page at http://futureofresearch.org/nasfeedback/ for more info....

This is a guest post by Future of Research board member, Adriana Bankston. In an effort to stand up for science and think about the changes we want to see in science, Future of Research (FoR) and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) co-hosted two twitter chats engaging various groups to participate in the discussion. This post will summarize the broad points in both chats. Science communicates The first tweet chat was held on April 27, 2017, with the theme “Science communicates” and using the hashtag #MarchforSciencechat as part of the March for Science week of action. The chat was meant to give participants the chance to express their impressions following the March for Science event and discuss future actions following the march, as part of a broader discussion of how we can communicate our message and what sort of message we want the community to receive from scientists. Below are overall themes summarized from the responses, which can also be considered potential actionable items (and a few linked tweets): Bring science to the national & political discussion Make our voice heard to policy makers Serve the public, remember the public is imperative to our success Have the public advocate for our cause Enable policy makers and taxpayers to understand the value of our work Engage in sustained advocacy doable in the average person’s time Prioritize diversity and inclusion = foster innovation Talk to the public about our science = it’s fun & can lead to new research ideas Here are a couple of broader idea tweets from this chat by Maryam Zaringhalam...

This is a guest post by Future of Research board member, Adriana Bankston. Although postdocs are highly skilled, PhD-level scientists, they have been a historically underpaid segment of the biomedical workforce. While advocating for increased postdoctoral salaries had been previously attempted, not much has changed, and there was still not much hope in terms of better pay in 2016. This was about to change on December 1st, 2016, when the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ruling from the Department of Labor was to result in increased salaries for full-time postdocs from $23,660 to $47,476 per year. At Future of Research, we have been tracking the national compliance of institutions with the FLSA ruling at various timepoints before this date, and subsequently published the results in F1000Research on November 17th, 2016. On November 22nd, 2016, a preliminary injunction against the Department of Labor was granted nationwide, delaying the FLSA implementation. Since that time, Future of Research has been once again tracking how institutions responded to the injunction nationally. To get an idea of how postdocs felt in the current state of the research enterprise, in this first blog post, we spoke with postdocs at various universities whose salaries were raised following the injunction. The effects of salary raises As expected, continuing to raise salaries despite the injunction was received positively, as it significantly helped some postdocs improve their own life situations. “The extra money is particularly helpful for my situation because my husband has a job in Nashville, and I’m completing my postdoctoral training at Yale University. Because of my salary, we are able to afford our apartments...

On Sept 12, from 1-2pm EST Future of Research (@FORsymp) and the Union of Concerned Scientists (@SciNetUCS) will co-host a Tweetchat on “Mentoring the future,” talking about what mentoring in science is/should be, and how we should change the culture of mentoring in science. Follow along at #MentoringFutureSci Questions will be posting the questions from the @FORsymp account and then made that into a Storify, such as we did here for the #forchangingscience tweetchat we held recently. Invited participants include: The National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN): @NRMNET The Future PI Slack Channel: @FuturePI_Slack Addgene: @Addgene Labmosphere: @labmosphere Postdoc Pinar Gurel: @pinar_gurel Corey Welch, Director, STEM Scholars Program for UR-students: @CoreyWelch_STEM This chat is to help prepare us for discussions at the Ethical and Inspiring Mentorship in STEM (FoR College Park) meeting to be held September 21st, 2017 at University of Maryland, as part of National Postdoctoral Appreciation Week #NPAW2017. You can find out more info about that meeting here, and register to attend here! This event is co-hosted by the Union of Concerned Scientists. ...